02/26/2025
Know your enemy - Glossy Buckthorn winter identification!
It’s National Invasive Species Awareness Week! Each day this week we will spotlight one of the most frequently encountered invasive plants in our area.
Glossy Buckthorn (Frangula alnus) is a shrub that grows well in the sun or shade and takes over forest understories, crowding out native plants.
Habit: shrub or small tree, usually 10-15’ tall, sometimes multi-stemmed
Bark: dark gray and smooth, often with a purplish tint, and distinctive white horizontal bumps (lenticels). Scraping the bark reveals a orange interior
Twig: thin and straight, alternate branching, with a distinctive “goat hoof” curved shape to the naked fuzzy terminal bud
Fruit: dark black berries (mostly disappeared by this time of year)
Roots: dark maroon-purple roots
Look-alikes: Glossy buckthorn can look similar to black cherry saplings, but the cherry has a scaly, pointed bud (vs buckthorn’s goat hoof) and a strong smell when you scrape and sniff the twig. Glossy buckthorn can also look like Common Buckthorn, another invasive shrub. Common has a shiner gray bark, pointy black buds and occasional thorns at the end of its twigs, and dark black roots. Either buckthorn species is worth removing!
Management: Just as with most of our woody invasives, glossy buckthorn will resprout if you cut the stem but leave the roots intact. Depending on the soil, it can be fairly easy to pull up by hand. W**d wrenches can work very well on larger plants. But if your buckthorn cannot be uprooted, you can cut the stem a few inches above the ground and immediately dab the outer edge of the bark with a systemic herbicide like Roundup to target the roots.
Once you learn to recognize glossy buckthorn, you will be stunned by how much of our wild spaces are infested with this noxious plant! But few things are as satisfying as pulling out an intact buckthorn root system out of loose soil! There will be upcoming CLCT volunteer events to help clean up our forests – join our mailing list to stay informed!
